No laughing matter: How autonomous agents can improve well-being and teamwork

Autonomous agents are a critical factor for maintaining the well-being and health of astronaut teams in long duration spaceflight. As autonomous agents become more independent, and interdependent the need to understand how they can interact effectively with humans not only becomes more necessary, but will become the paradigm for future team research. In our paper, we describe a conceptual model that explains how autonomous agents and human team members can learn to implicitly coordinate through humorous social interaction and effective task interdependence. We argue that to build a shared mental model between autonomous agents and human team members, HATs need to develop trust with one another, albeit through different mechanisms, to work together effectively.